Should the Jets keep Rex or clean house?

On Friday’s edition of Pro Football Talk, Peter King and yours truly took up the question of whether the Jets should bring back coach Rex Ryan for another season.

King says yes. I used to agree, but in light of a recent stream of daily distractions and embarrassments the best move for the Jets would be to press the proverbial reset button and clean house.

Actually, the best move would be for owner Woody Johnson to sell the team, since his unending desire to constantly attract attention and generate headlines has resulted in the wrong kind of attention — and the worst kind of headlines.

72 responses to “Should the Jets keep Rex or clean house?”

In professional football it has been said that employment will continue as long as their is hope for the future. Without such, it’s time to put someone else who can can give the organization and fans hope. With such hope the bills get paid.

I think he is one of the things right with the team. He has done a lot with a little. Great defense all years he has been there and the offense played well enough up until the last two years to get them in the playoffs. He needs a solid GM who will get him the right players who can play and not the ones who will sell papers. I think if Rex gets the right tools around him he will be a better coach.

Why don’t we ask Manish’s unnamed source? That guy/girl/intern/security guard/janitor has all of the answers.

Stop defending this guy. We understand that he’s a guy in the industry that you can consistently have on the show, but give me a break. He’s a joke. You don’t see reputable reporters pull hide behind the anonymous resources like Manish does. He doesn’t have to defend his claims b/c there is nobody to put a name to it nor does he have to face any serious consequences for the damage he causes.

One day he’ll be a great writer for Page 6, but don’t let him use the Jets as his springboard for hot gossip.

Can Tannebaum or fire them both. Ryan obviously isn’t happy with the way things are going and he’s getting no help from the GM nor Mr. Johnson. Then again, Johnson said he cared more about Romney being elected president than making the Jets a winning team. You reap what you sow.

Rex should go. Tim Tebow should be the next starting QB for the Jets.. in addition to being player coach. Clean house- for the players- get a solid GOOD WHOLESOME set of people playing football with passion… and they’ll rock.

Tim Tebow for QB -and- coach -and- GM is the only way that the Jets make the playoffs in 2013.

Keep the hapless fatso with the big yap on the Jets sideline. It’s fun to watch him make an idiot of himself week after week. Maybe he could even bring his bro over as DC then it would be at least a 2-ring circus! LOL

I think he is one of the things right with the team. He has done a lot with a little. Great defense all years he has been there and the offense played well enough up until the last two years to get them in the playoffs. He needs a solid GM who will get him the right players who can play and not the ones who will sell papers. I think if Rex gets the right tools around him he will be a better coach.
*****************************************
The right “tool” for this guy would be a muzzle.

How do you realistically keep him? The bravado only works as long as the players buy into it and how are they supposed to do that after Rex hitched his wagon to Sanchez? And their offensive coaching has been abysmal. Close games where they had Sanchez throwing 45 passes and completing maybe half of them? Rex was the guy in charge as they built game plans designed to fail.

Rex gets alot of heat for his personality, but hes a great X’s and O’s guy. That roster was a mess all year and somehow that team was in it up until the final weeks without their best player on defense, no WR’s, a shaky O-line, no RB, and no QB.

I think they should keep Rex…he needs to get a real OC like Norv Turner..plus a real GM. Rex did take these guys to two AFC championship games…maybe someone like Turner can salvage Sanchez…the qb truly has not improved over 4 years…hard to believe but maybe shotenhiemer and big tony are that bad of coaches…anyway..I think Rex should come back

Why give Mark an extension at literally the same time they brought in Tebow? Someone should be held accountable. If Mark needed a push, an electric prod is cheaper, no circus atmosphere created, and people like myself wouldn’t question why Tebow wasn’t given a “full” chance, say after ummmm, week 6?
Totally disasterous season!

At some point, you have to look at the quality of the roster, which is to say, the cupboard is bare.

When you trade a ton of draft picks to move up to #5 to get your franchise QB and the move doesn’t work out as planned, it tends to deplete the overall team. That is more the central issue with the Jets although Rex’s bluster provides for more than a mere distraction.

I say keep Ryan. Bring in a better OC and GM. None of the top-tier coaching candidates want this circus anyway. Also, Woody Johnson needs to eat the money for Sanchez’s contract, release Tebow and go hard after a FA or trade at QB.

STOP the Insanity! Tannenbaum, Ryan, Sanchez are the ringleaders of the circus they call the J-E-T-S. Run, do not walk, them out of town! You can’t fool all the people all the time. Personnel have been decimated, they’re the laughingstock of the NFL. The Lingerie League may not want them.

It’s a bad year to be firing a coach if you’re on the fence about it. It’s very easy to see 8 to 10 teams engaging in coaching searches next year and some of the top shelf coaches will probably be part of bidding wars, and what coach is going to want to come into the QB situation the Jets have right now?

The most logical suggestion made was for Rex to just admit he made a mistake hiring Sporano, and buy out his contract. I don’t see Rex as the problem. Their dysfunction is about a QB lost in a crazy run around offense that went nowhere. Lost in the Jets soap opera is the fact Rex still has a stout defense that is because of Rex. Any firings beyond Sporano should be made above Rex.

Most of the people who come here and post are NE fans. They want the Jets to clean house. That makes the Jets team weak. Bill Belicrap loves beating weak teams. If cost too much money to hire new coaches. The first the Jets should is get rid of the players that an’t doing their job. Get rid of OT Howard on the offensive line. He is allowing defensive players to zoom pass him. Draft OT Luke Joeckel of Texas A&M.

If cleaning house includes the owner i’d gladly sacrifice rex to ditch woody- he’s awful and this debacle all starts with him….unfortunately it probably won’t end until he does too. I cant believe i’m writing this but I miss Leon Hess.

Get rid of the whole circus act, and start again. The Jets have been a mess for 2 seasons now, and it needs to be over.
Rex and Sparano need to go, Sparano is a terrible offensive co ordinator. His playbook for Tebow must have nothing in it, that was very unkind to treat him like that. He’s not a bad person, he’s just not a very good QB. Maybe it will work for him Jacksonville.

Even as a Jets fan, I get tired of the media circus surrounding this team, and sometimes, I just want Rex to shut up, but no one can dispute the success they have had under him relative to the years before him, and I would even make the same case for Woody Johnson.

Woody built this team a new training facility, and helped build a new stadium, both of which have helped attract free agents that he has been willing to spend money on. While the team’s cap situation reflects poor spending decisions, which Tannenbaum should mainly bear the blame for, the teams recent slump is not due to a lack of spending.

And where was Woody being loud and obnoxious during the Mangini years? The owner has simply embraced, and fully supported, each coach he has had, adopting their ways.

While it may be tough for a couple of years, it makes no sense to bring in a new coach now. They need to keep Rex, and he needs to suck it up and deal with this situation until the team has freed up resources by cutting the waste that has accumulated on their roster/cap.

Ryan is just like his Dad was and thats a BIG mouth. Rob has one but the Cowboys monitor what he says to the News outlets and he’s done a fairly good job with all the injuries the Cowboys have had on Defense. But Rex is a different story he plays a guy at QB thats a joke and you have one that was a proven winner in Denver and what Jets has done to that man is a joke. I just hope that Teabow goes to Jacksonville and hires a QB coach to teach him the right way to play QB. Say what you want about Romo he has been 1 of the best QB’s for several years and had nothing around him. And I think that Wade Wilson could make Teabow and outstanding QB for some other team but not the Jets. I’m fire Ryan and the GM and rework alot of players contracts and cut Mark Sanchez. And bring in a Vet. QB.

I’m a Pats fan and this season has been fun to watch, but I’d rather see a competitive Jets team, good for AFC East & League. However, how can an owner keep the people (RR & MT) that rewarded failure big time.

IMHO, the buck stops with the Head Coach and the GM as well since he has the final say on draft picks, acquisitions that effect the team.

I think you get rid of both and start over.

Maybe the other question should be, is it a fluke the Jets aren’t in the playoffs? If the answer to that is no, considering the talent on the team, the answer becomes more evident: clean house good bye Rex, goodbye GM.

Did anybody get the joke? Tebow is christian and ponder means to think. There is also a QB named Christian Ponder. It’s a nice play on words.
===================

The joke was good. Your mistake was including the explanation.

As for Ryan, I think he needs to go. There is a place for people like the Ryan boys, but I don’t think it is at the top of an organization. They need someone above them to reign in their over-size personalities. Left to run amuck, their teams take on these personalities and wind up resembling zoos more than professional organizations.

Nice post. I am not sure I absolve Woody totally though. He’s willing to spend the money which is good, but unfortunately he doesn’t seem to know enough what he doesn’t know (a problem my team’s owner, Kraft, had at first), which leads him to do things like promoting Tannenbaum (whom we both agree is a problem). Being great at your job means never ceasing to learn and grow and perhaps Woody needs to consult business leaders in other venues who he respects and asks them what qualities are important in hiring good people, etc. He can then apply that to a search for a new GM. Merely kicking Tanny upstairs would be a disaster as even though he may be suited for it (he is highly educated) his replacement could have a very uncomfortable work environment.
Or…This is another thing BB did to blow up his rivals…Tanny did start with BB in Cle. LOL

As a Pats fan I would suggest that Woody fire Rex and move Tannenbaum into a more influencial role; one with the ability to be the sole decision maker as to who should be then next headcoach. With the Bills, Fish and M-E-S-S (mess, mess, mess) in the division it makes each year seem like a new circus is coming to town.

Please do anything you can to continue this tradition Woody! PS: Props on the name.. Woody Johnson.. just golden.